Kerouac: A Biography

I finished Chapter One of Ann Charters' Kerouac: A Biography waiting for my delayed flight out of Portland on Monday. It was a "crew rest delay." The crew scheduled for that flight had to take a mandatory rest. Something about that doesn't make sense to me, but it's too bizarre to put into words. But I digress....

The other Kerouac biography I read (and loved) was Gerald Nicosia's. I'm already loving Charters' version of Jack's life. Written in 1973, it offers such tidbits as this:

You can still get coffee and a hamburger in the Textile Lunch where Kerouac lived in the wooden building upstairs.

I'll ask about that when we go to Lowell this October for Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! Perhaps it's still there.

Charters' Introduction describes her initial brush with Kerouac - a poetry reading in 1956 - to becoming a collector, to gaining an invitation to Kerouac's Hyannis home to work on a bibiliography in 1966. Fascinating stuff.

Especially to us Kerouacites.